1997 Saturn SC Reviews - Page 6 of 10

1997 Saturn SC 1.9 from North America

Summary:

I love it

Faults:

I agree with the oil consumption posts. However, it gets great fuel economy aroung 36mph+ so adding a quart of good grade oil is cheap at $1.40-$2.00. It also burns much less oil at 10-40SAE vs 10-30. The oil consumption more than likely the rings going bad or gone. I suggest just keeping an extra few quarts of oil around and check the oil at every fill up! It is easy and will keep your car running for a long time. No oil in an engine is death to an engine. These cars are cheap and need usually simple care to keep going. I have 2 Saturn SC2 1997 models and one has 197000miles and the other 136000. Both Automatics and get great Fuel economy. Just make sure to ALWAYS check your oil and top it off and your car should never have engine failure.

General Comments:

Sporty, easy to drive. Great economy. Using Firestone Affinity Tires perform well for me.

1997 Saturn SC sc1 4 cylinder from North America

Summary:

Saturn---poor quality, do not purchase

Faults:

Head gasket at 60,000

Total engine replacement at 102000.

General Comments:

Would never buy another Saturn again. I changed oil at 3000 miles, checked oil every week, did not abuse the car and was amazed when things started going wrong at 60000 miles. Started with cracked head gasket and ended with a blown engine at 102000 miles. Have heard numerous stories of poor quality--wish I would have known of them prior to purchasing. Have used this knowledge to advise quite a few people not to buy Saturn's. Purchased a Toyota last year and have been pleased. I will never buy a GM product in the future and have advised friends/family to purchase Toyota or Honda.

28th Oct 2008, 17:55

I doubt that your advice to people not to buy a Saturn due to your very rare bad experience with one will cause much of a sales drop. As a general rule, they are extremely reliable (though very boring) cars. Blown head gaskets are very often caused by allowing the engine to overheat, which few modern engines can tolerate. If you ran it hot, it is not the car's fault.

My God son bought a Saturn SC-1 when he entered college 10 years ago and put nearly 200,000 miles on it with nary a problem. It was passed on to his younger brother. I've driven Saturns with as high as 250,000 miles and they seemed to run great.

As for sending friends to Honda and Toyota, I wouldn't unless I was VERY angry at my friends. The quality of imports has literally fallen through the floor, and Toyota especially has been plagued by NUMEROUS very serious problems. Just check the Camry and Tundra reviews.

1997 Saturn SC SC1 from North America

Summary:

Faults:

That is it so far; I've only owned this thing for 7 months, and all this has already happened.

General Comments:

After someone totaled my Toyota Tercel that I’d owned for nine years, I got stuck with a Saturn 1997 SC-1.

Don’t get me wrong, it looks cool, but that is the only thing it has going for it. My Toyota was never in the shop; my dad loved gloating that of his two teens (and later college students) his daughter’s car was the easiest to maintain. The Saturn, on the other hand, is in the shop more often than my brother’s completely beat up and abused 1993 Geo Prizm.

Day two of owning it and driving down to the city for school, the car starts smelling weird. I take it in to my mechanic, who, after a whole day of looking at it, he finds that the pulleys on one of the belts are completely destroyed. $105 to fix that. Two months later, I’m still recovering from injuries from my accident, and I take the car in for its oil change. Now the worthless piece of junk has decided to eat two of its four tires. Lovely! I haven’t been able to replace them. The passenger door lock has a habit of detaching itself so you cannot lock it from the inside. That was $100 to fix. The tires, I haven’t gotten fixed yet. My mechanic tells me not to worry when it blows its trans; I’ll be able to get Saturn parts for cheap. Compared to my Toyota Tercel, this car is a piece of crap. And it is supposedly in a better class. Between this and the Ford coupe I drove as a rental car, I’ve pretty much sworn off American cars. I’ll feel free to buy Toyota, Mazda, or Subaru in the future. The Saturn is worth more than my 1995 Toyota Tercel DX was; I cannot fathom why, as the Toyota was the better of the two cars. If you have a choice, buy something else. Sure, my friends tell me that the Saturn is better looking than Grumpy (the Toyota) was, but my father and I are forever spending money on this thing.